We note that prior asymptotic calculations have indicated that linear viscoelasticity does not affect the swimming speed of a filament to leading order in small amplitude deformations, and nonlinear viscoelastic effects are needed to see changes in the swimming speed from a Newtonian swimmer [1]}, [2]}, [3]}, [4]}. These results rely on an expression for the swimming speed in terms of the actual fiber shape rather than a given forcing. Here we show that prescribing the same preferred curvature along the filament results in differences in the emerging shape and hence in the swimming speed. We also note that our analysis accounts for effects of boundary conditions on finite fibers and applies to fibers with small curvatures rather than small amplitude deformations.
